Fossil sells smartwatch technology to google for 40 million dollars

Watch brand Fossil Group has made an agreement with Google on the sale of smartwatch technology. Google pays Fossil an amount of 40 million dollars.

A part of Fossil’s research and development team moves to Google, Fossil announces Thursday in a press release ( pdf ). Sales will be completed this month.

The team is working at Google on “a new product innovation that has not yet appeared on the market”. It is unknown what exactly is meant by this.

According to Greg Kelvey of Fossil, it is the technology that Fossil has developed after the company took over Misfit. Misfit focused in particular on the development of fitness trackers. Fossil paid an amount of 260 million dollars for this in 2015.

Fossil specializes in hybrid smartwatches. These are watches with only a few smart functions besides showing the time, such as counting steps and notifying notifications.